The rise of Human Centred Design & UX in Brisbane

Having spent the last 6 x years recruiting across the UX, CX & Service Design landscape in Sydney, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I relocated to Brisbane?

I began my journey in understanding Brisbane’s capability of HCD through introductions from my existing network. I was surprised to uncover HCD being utilised within the B2B & manufacturing environments, solving ‘customer’and 'performance' problems in the adoption & integration of emerging technology.

Government was the next key area using HCD with departments like Human Services & Health continuing to build their capability across the country. Growing Service Design teams by focusing on attracting those with ‘critical thinking’ or the ever popular ‘Industrial Designer.’ I’m sure Brisbane is going to see an increase in the need for a design led approach in Government contracts and balancing the needs of the customer with technology feasibility to ensure a stronger outcome.

In comparison to the Sydney market there are only a handful of Enterprise organisations really developing their user experience retail experience with substantial Design teams…so far. However, once the initial ground work has been laid by the many consultancies currently educating C Suite then I expect we’ll see what happened in Sydney 4 x years ago….a sudden huge appetite for UX Designers and every man and his dog claiming to be a UX Senior/Specialist/Guru/Thought Leader.

The start-up & scaling scene is also on the rise and I can see a selection of ‘Heads of Product Design’ being appointed. This in turn will see the need for Product Designers growing and those Designers with a UX & UI background moving into these roles.

There’s a lot the Brisbane market can learn from Sydney, in how to do things well but how not to do things too. I like how Brisbane is curious to hear the stories of an HCD approach from their Sydney & Melbourne counterparts but they don’t feel the need to follow. Brisbane is its own master and rather than looking to ‘compete’ with other cities, it’s following its own path and I for one am excited to be here for the ride!!